


Pandemonium

by QuillHeart



Category: Diablo II
Genre: Angels walk among us but we cannot make them say our names, Companionable Snark, Dark Comedy, Doesn't break the fourth wall, Fluff, Gen, One Shot, Snark, The world of D2 is a terrible place, To OC or not OC that is the question, What to do in Hell but drink and watch the flames
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 13:41:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4103014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuillHeart/pseuds/QuillHeart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One night at the Pandemonium Fortress, a sorceress cradles her drink, watches the flames, and discovers Tyreal likes to gossip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pandemonium

**Author's Note:**

> A dark but pleasant in-world fic musing on some of the elements of my favorite childhood co-op game. I hope you all enjoy it too, because even with all the good memories, I will never get enough of it. 
> 
> And yes, my name on there was a derivative of "Zippy." What was yours?

The Pandemonium Fortress was not somewhere known for its good drinks, despite the fact that everyone needed it--and badly.  In the constant heat of the lava that churned and growled like a hungry stomach and sent up the screams of desperate souls, the usual was lack of appetite for food and far too much need for strong drink.  Not that it mattered.  Everything tasted terrible here anyway, going along with the acrid stench of burning flesh, both human and demon alike.

"Ahhh, I miss Kurast," the adventurer said, taking a sip as she sat against one ancient cobble wall on the edge of the fortress.  The sorceress looked up at the red sky, and the memory of the damp, dark forest, with its rotting bodies and bog pits came acutely back.  "Wait, no I don't.  It rained all the time and there were all those gremlin things.... I can still hear the giggling, ugk."

She downed another quaff of malt and tipped her head against the slightly cooler stone.

"Ahhh, I miss Lut Gohlein..." She tipped her head and watched a broken soul bubble up from the lava below the fortress's walls, disappear into a burst of fire and scream she could not hear.  "Ah, actually, it was really hot there...and the whole underground was overrun by demons.  Yeah, I don't miss Lut Gohlein either. . . ."

She shrugged and threw back more of the brew, whatever the hell it was.  "I miss the encampment.  There were girls.  And Atma had good beer."

She sighed and tipped the mug, its brownish half-of-a-draught contents, and then raised her hand to Laney.  "Thanks lady."

Laney, rummaging through her toolbox, just raised one gloved hand and then continued digging.  The sorceress sighed and looked around the levels of the comparably tiny fortress's upper deck.  The other sellers were busy, and the rest of the adventurers were conferring over gems and spells or what have you.  No one that just wanted to sit and deal.  Admire the meaning of the view, and appreciate the term "hellscape".

It was then that a light glimmered on her dirty glass--not red like the flames, but white, like the angels.

Slowly, peering around the wall she sat against and up the rampart steps, wincing a little from her bruised and scorched side, she eyed the two figures that stood at the top.  All she could see were their feet--or rather, the hem of grey robes and the edge of several trails of glowing light.

There were no actual feet to be seen, which meant the two were free of other adventurers and would-be heroes to converse with.  And Cain was always good for a laugh, doddering old bookish type as he was.

The sorceress known as Zippy raised to her feet and ambled over.  A Horradrim and an _angel_...  It was still a bit much to believe.  Though, granted, she was standing in _Hell_ right now, so there shouldn't have been much that was a surprise anymore.

Tyreal and Deckard Cain were actually chatting, it seemed, Cain just on the edge of the whispy wings, a little closer than anyone else would stand.  The streaks of light definitely looked like they could melt you, if the man--angel--... _thing_ \--felt like it.  And he just might; that one Paladin was a jackass.

Though...if you got killed in Hell...?

"Hey Tyreal, hey Cain," she said, over the edge of her jug as she took a wary sip.

"Hello again!" said Deckard, the smile going all the way to the many lines about his eyes.

"Greetings, young sorceress, blessed be that you have returned," the bronze-clad angel's strong voice rang out.  She couldn't see his face beyond the cowl, still wondered if there really was one under there (and all the implications of that), but she had the distinct impression "he" was ... happy.  Like, amused happy, beyond just seeing her again. (Like any one of them mattered to the cause, yeah that was a laugh.  Hundreds went through here a day, and never came back.  At least that she could tell.)

When the little tingles from the voice's power wore off, Zippy took another drink and then held it out to the old man.  "Beer, Cain?" she asked, but he waved it off with a guffaw.  The sorceress looked at the mouth of the container, and then, slowly, cocked her jaw a little.

"Hey Tyreal, you wanna beer?"

He tipped his head a little, the metal clinking slightly.  For not the first time, she wondered if it must have been enchanted.  It didn't glow like enchanted materials, but it sure as hell was shiny for such a brassy alloy.  And that black space in his face, how did that _work?_ \--

"That is quite all right," Tyreal answered, voice booming even though it wasn't.  It echoed, kind of, in her instead of in the air, and she wasn't sure if it was just the chamber or not.  "Your mortal drinks would have no effect on me," he added, somewhat lamenting.

"They got good stuff up in the Beyond?  Magic drink for magic beings?"

Somehow, she got the impression Tyreal was smiling.  Something psychic, perhaps.  She had gotten a lot of swag this time out with Telepathy, it was true.

"You could say that."

"I ... see."  Zippy gave him a long look, and wondered if she could finagle a way for him to say "Zippy" someday.  One of these days....

She looked out onto the vista, through the open arches and onto the reddened sky.  There was no sun, but the sky was always lit bright.

Come to think of it, the angel stayed in a shadow, in the farthest-back corner of the upper level.  He probably had a penchant for high places, if not just a phobia of closed ones, but something about the light here.... Well, there was the fact that it was Hell, okay, granted there was that.  But no one had incinerated yet.

Unless they fell in the lava.

Or got caught by the trapped souls.

Or mauled by the beasts, then they kind of crumbled.  And probably ended up in the lava, too.  After the souls crawled over and gnawed on them a little.

"Quite the view, is it not?" Tyreal asked, suddenly.  The sorceress glanced back at him, a bit surprised, and then nodded.

"Yeah."  She took a breath before going for the alcohol again, and it felt like she was breathing that red.  It nearly seared.

"It is the same view from the gates Above," Tyreal said.  "Just reversed."

"And full of fuc---er, lava," she added.  And then looked around quickly, as if lightening would descend. 

And not hers, unfortunately.

Her glance fell on Cain, wandering away to talk to someone who had brought in a savage--and absolutely ridiculous-looking--spiked club that was no wonder it had ended up in Hell.  At least there wasn't blood to clear off this time.

"Do not worry, Hero," came the angel's voice again, the slightest twinge of mirth.  "There is a path to the light, and so long as you walk it with virtuous intent, there is nothing to fear."

Her dark eyes gazed over, ruthless, and then back out onto the fortress.  She smiled, and then to the almost-gone drink in hand.

"It is true," Tyreal said.

"I'm sure it is," she replied, through the grin.

The people out on the roof levels were milling about, some descending into the pits.  She would be back out there, soon.  Wondered how many of them she wouldn't ever see again.

"There is something you are wondering," the angel continued.  "You may speak."

"You're creepy when you do that, you know."

"It is not hard to read God's creatures," he all but laughed.

"Don't smile at me!  I don't know how but somehow I know you're smiling under there!"

The grin grew.  Somehow, the wings glowed brighter when he did, and a little longer too--a little bit more intent on petting whatever human was nearby.  She eyed it, wondering what enchantment such a blessing might bring.  "Speak. What is on your mind?"

She gave him a long look, and the glowing fibers too, and then sighed, nodding.  "This whole thing with Baal.... You don't seem like quite the normal angel, either."

There was a long pause, in which the air around Tyreal hummed thoughtfully.  "I'm not," he replied eventually in his baritone voice.  But he didn't add any more than that.

The sorceress glanced around quickly again, especially toward the sky area, before she finally let out a breath and fixed the black cowl with a harsh stare.  I was worth it to know, if only one questioned.  It took only one to cause all this mess, over and over again.

"You're the only one that has come to watch over us?"

He shook his cowl back and forth, the fabric rippling like his wings.  "I did not fulfill my duties.  I am still here to help achieve my mission," he said, a bit stiffly.  She sensed that he grimaced, wherever in the eons of space-time his face actually was.

ZIppy rolled her bottom lip and then looked out onto the plains, the endless, slightly rolling fires burning from the very ground itself.  "You have trouble here, don't you?"

"We angels gain power by other heavenly beings, or by the faithful," Tyreal answered after a while.  His wings continued their blue-glow slow wave, and he shifted slightly, the armor making a strange chiming sound. "You are wondering why I cannot defeat Diablo for you."

Her drink was almost gone, and with it, the attempt at avoiding answers.  "It has to do with the balance, doesn't it?  Something like that?"

"Heaven's balance.  In general, yes--how wise you are, Hero."  His shoulders shifted, in a way that indicated he was smirking.  But then he looked up, and after a moment, turned his gaze out to the lava fields, and a few black specks moving along its murderous undulations. "But specifically, I am only one, and thus my power is limited.  The faithful have much more power than I ever will, hero.  For that very reason, you and your fellows are the ones written to do this, not I."

"I see," she said, glancing aside.  "So who gave Bowser the one-up 'shroom?" she muttered. 

Along one side of the rotunda, Cain stood, hunched and amused as ever in his blue-grey robes, looking over some nasty crossbow of her party's necromancer, who was decked out in strange bones and heads and...things.  At least his skeletons hadn't followed them in this time; she'd need a lot more drinks before that could stop mattering.

Cain hadn't ever seemed to mind.  He tended to enjoy the enchantments a bit too much, in her opinion. 

Maybe he couldn't do it?

Come to think of it, she had not had need of Cain's skills in a while, but every time she did, the squirrelly old book-type had been hanging around with the angel currently hovering at her back.

Cain was old.  And he wasn't the fighting type by his own admission, had probably never held a sword in his life but for the ones he gleefully considered when he identified their properties.  If he actually knew the proper way to wield one, it would be more than half a surprise to her.  So was it that being around Tyreal afforded him protection, strength?  Or was there something more there?

"So,..." she said, her hands on her hips, "I heard you like to gossip.  An angel that likes gossip, what is that about."

"Motivations are the ties that bind Heaven and Earth and Hell most tightly, and what transmits those ties better than stories?"

She blinked up at him, hands on her hips.

To her squint, the bronzed helmet tipped slightly to the side.  "What would you like to talk about, young one?"

"Tell me what you know of Deckard Cain."

"Deckard Cain?" Tyreal asked, looking at him curiously.  "Do not worry for your friend, Hero.  The Horradrim of ancient have always been an ally of the forces of good.  As the last of them, Deckard Cain is mine to watch over.  I will take good care of him."

Behind her, Cain chuckled, that almost giggly cackle of an amused old professor-type at the finding of another treasure.

"...I ... _see_ ," she said, that laugh still darting around her brain.  "You aren't here for us.  You're here for him."

_Are you going to spirit him away when this is done?  Or do you know he's going to die, and you merely stay by him until it's time?_

Wasn't it grand that Cain had a one-way ticket to ascension, even though the only reason he was probably still alive, unascended, was that he was the only one of an entire warrior culture that stayed inside and studied.

_Huh, I guess there's something to be learned there, hm?_

The angel just smiled, and this time, she wondered if she didn't see a slip of white, just like the wings, underneath his mask.  A tendril of white fluttered over her shoulder, and she realized, belatedly, that he really was petting her with his wings.

It left her feeling calm, collected, in a way she hadn't in months. 

"There is a path for each of us," he said, as Zippy turned out to the bloody vista.  "And light at the end of each of them."

For a while, she stood there, watching errant bits of Tyreal's light float off into the distance like seeds on the wind.  They always managed to fall onto someone, or something, and shimmer for a moment before melting into what she presumed to be a blessing.

The sorceress nodded and, waving with the empty jug, left his shelter behind and walked to the gathering crowd below.  He let her go easily, but the whisper of his words had built a fortress of its own in her resolve.

By the communal war chest, she picked up her staff and stood at the edge of the way to Pandemonium.  As the red light painted across stained armor, she wrote into the world, pouring out from her mind:

"All right, come on Skymancer, Skymanver, Super Manifesto, whatever your name is blue guy.  Soap_Bubble, MuffinTop, Awesome_Sauce8, Cool_Dude.  I'm going out to the plains.  Today is the day we take down Diablo for good."


End file.
